Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)We have theoretically studied how the azimuthal phase structure of an electron vortex beam excites surface plasmons on metal particles of different geometries as observed in electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). We have developed a semiclassical approximation combining a ring-shaped beam and the dielectric formalism. Our results indicate that for the case of total orbital angular momentum transfer, we can manipulate surface plasmon multipole excitation and even attain an enhancement factor of several orders of magnitude. Since electron vortex beams interact with particles mostly through effects due to azimuthal symmetry, i.e., in the plane perpendicular to the electron beam, anisotropy information (longitudinal and transversal) of the sample may be derived in EELS studies by comparing nonvortex and vortex beam measurements. © 2016 American Physical Society.93 2014/01045-0, FAPESP, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico302767/2012-6, CNPq, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)